


Silver Lining

by sans_patronymic



Series: Winning Combination [2]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Companionable Snark, Cunnilingus, Developing Relationship, F/M, Rough Sex, Three Year Gap (Dragon Ball)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 00:16:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20087671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sans_patronymic/pseuds/sans_patronymic
Summary: Vegeta stops by for a late-night romp and Bulma accidentally asks a Big Question.





	Silver Lining

Bulma didn’t bother to sit up when she heard the door open. It was nearly two in the morning and she really needed to be asleep. She had to Do Things and See People tomorrow and that required at least five hours of sustained unconsciousness. She did not need Vegeta crawling into her bed, smelling like sweat and bad ideas. She rolled over with a sigh and drew the covers up to her chin.   


“You know, I’m pretty sure you have a perfectly good bed all to yourself just down the hall.”

“This one is softer,” Vegeta answered.

“I thought you were a seasoned warrior, accustomed to sleeping on the cold, hard ground and eating worms.”

“Ugh—I would never eat worms,” He said with a shudder that was just violent enough to be genuine.   


“Why not? They’re good protein.”   


“Bad experience.”   


“Tell me about it?”

“No.”

“Aw, c’mon…”   


“No.”   


Bulma rarely got a double ‘no’. Those must have been _some _worms.    


He stretched out next to her, their bodies close, but not touching. The space between the them was hot, charged. Bulma decided there had to be something fundamentally wrong with her if she found not-touching someone this arousing.   


“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever eaten?”   


“Don’t ask a question, unless you’re prepared for the answer.”   


Bulma tried to conjure up a list of Grossest Possible Things: alien goat vomit, rotten chicken, a still-beating heart. She could live with knowledge like that.  
  
“Tell me,” she insisted.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Shut up and tell me already!”   


“I’m confused. Do you want me to shut up or do you want me to tell you?”   


“I swear I will smack that stupid smirk off your stupid face if you don’t tell me _right now._”   


“Very well. The worst thing I have ever eaten, in the entire universe, is,” Vegeta paused just long enough to infuriate her, “your cooking.”   


Bulma pummeled him. She didn’t care that it would hurt her fists more than it did him, that was a low-blow and he deserved to be pummeled. She had cooked for him exactly once and that was only to prevent him from depleting her stash of instant noodles and pizza bagels while her mother was on vacation. It had been an act of self-preservation and was in no way an excuse to eat dinner together.   


She was about half-way through calling him every name she could think of, when she realized Vegeta was laughing. Not a low, sexy rumble and not a maniacal, ‘I will watch your civilization burn’ laugh, either. This was something else, something unrestrained, with just a hint of a snort on the inhale. The sort of laugh that made it actually seem possible for him and Goku to be the same species. 

“You asked,” Vegeta reminded her.

She brought her face within millimeters of his.    


“Fuck. You.”   


Not exactly witty or devastating, but it was late. In seven hours she had to be downtown, in heels, giving a presentation about her latest research to a hotel conference room full of underfunded academics who hated her guts. Why couldn’t Vegeta smirk at her like that at a more reasonable time of night?   


“Was that an offer?”

“Nuh-uh,” she said, settling back against the pillows, “Not tonight.”

“Oh, really?”

Vegeta rolled to follow her, pressing his face into her collarbone. His hand found its way under the tank top she was wearing, skimming across across her skin with a touch that was far too light, too teasing.   


“I have to get up early,” Bulma protested, but without much enthusiasm.   


“I see.”    


His fingers traced the bottom curve of her breasts before meandering down the middle of her stomach. Bulma didn’t know if the tingling sensations left behind were _ki_, or just in her head, but either way they made her shiver.

“I need to get some sleep.”    


“Of course.”

Her breath hitched as Vegeta’s lips travelled from her collarbone to her earlobe, punctuating their journey with rough kisses. Bulma wondered how many hickeys was too many for a conference on particle acceleration. Maybe she could set the record.

“But I’ve been having the _worst _insomnia lately.”

“Have you?” He asked into the side of her neck. “I think I know how to fix that.”

“Yeah?”   


“Mm.”

Bulma ran her hands along his arms, up his shoulders, to rest around the back of his neck. She brushed her thumb along the line of his jaw.    


“Show me.”   


It was less than a second before he was on top of her, his body pressed into hers. With his face still against her neck, Vegeta took a long, deep inhale that made Bulma pulse with desire. This was the way he often began, burying his nose against her skin and breathing her in. She didn’t know what it said about her that she loved it.   


He slid down the length of her body, surprisingly soft hands cradling and caressing her breasts, her sides, her hips, her thighs. Fingers curled beneath the elastic of her underwear as he eased them off of her. Bulma parted her legs for him, smiling as she watched his face disappear behind the horizon of her pelvis. Vegeta’s fingers skated along the backs of her thighs with that too-light touch that would drive her mad.   


“Tickles,” she protested.   


The fingers stopped and almost immediately she felt his teeth against her thigh. A bite firm enough to make her gasp. His tongue dragged along her skin as his mouth made its way to the slick center of her.    


Bulma always thought of herself as someone who just didn’t enjoy getting head. It made her feel self-conscious and awkward, too aware of her flaws. Or, rather, it _had _made her feel that way. Now, she was beginning to think that maybe Yamcha just wasn’t very good at eating people out. That, or Vegeta was _very _good at it. Or maybe it was because, for whatever fucked up reason, she trusted him more.   


Whatever the cause, she was certainly enjoying herself now. She loved the way he teased her, his tongue tracing her folds slowly, first clockwise, then the opposite, barely brushing against her clit in passing. He made one lazy loop, then another, and another, until she writhing and whining for more.   


“Please,” Bulma begged.   


That never failed to make him relent. He growled into her flesh and unleashed a hurricane of pleasures: now swirling, now sucking, now pressing. Bulma tossed her head back and came in short, powerful shudders. His mouth continued on its warpath until the crest of her orgasm subsided and dissolved into a thousand impulses that rushed through her neurons like fire.   


She groped clumsily, her palm landing on his forehead with an audible smack. An inelegant Cease and Desist. Vegeta raised his head and kissed her stomach, his chin dripping with the wetness of her.   


“That didn’t take long,” he noted with a smirk.   


“Careful, or I’ll say the same about you.”   


Vegeta hummed and laid his head on her chest. Bulma had kept a handful of unbelievable secrets in her life, but this was, by far, the most incredible. Nobody would ever believe that Vegeta, the gruff, callous murder machine, ate her pussy like a man possessed or cradled the fullness of her breasts in his hands with such tenderness. She smiled, trying to picture everyone’s faces if she told them. Krillin might actually spontaneously combust.   


Vegeta’s grip on her breast tightened, a thumb grazing across her nipple in rough pinch.   


“My turn,” he said in a hungry tone that sent excitement through her like a thunderbolt.

Now, he was on his hands and knees above her, naked and magnificent. When, exactly, had he taken off his clothes? Bulma hadn’t noticed, but she certainly didn’t _mind_. Her eyes drank in the sight of him in the dim light, all well-hewn muscles and perfect shapes. Whatever degenerate god had watched over Vegeta-sei really knocked it out of the park when they made him. Bulma spread her hands appreciatively over his chest, tracing his scars with lazy fingers.

“Your turn? And how should I give it to you?”   


He ran a hand down the length of her body, his fingers sliding over the wetness of her entrance. Bulma couldn’t help but arch into their touch. 

“Oh, you’re not going to _give _me anything,” he purred. “I’m going to _take it._”   


He slipped one finger inside of her, then another. Bulma gasped at the suddenness, her body throbbing with renewed desire. He worked her expertly, fingers curling to manipulate that spot inside her that made her gush. In moments, he had her on the edge of climax once again. When Vegeta pulled his hand away from her, Bulma couldn’t stop a whine from escaping her lips.    


“Tsk-tsk, someone’s eager,” he teased. She felt the head of his erection against her as he slowly dragged it across her clit, then down between her lips and back again. “I thought I told you: It’s _my _turn.”   


“_Fuck_,” was her ragged reply.   


He kept her there, in toe-curling, wordless want, for an agonizingly-long minute, taunting her with the length of his cock. When he finally sunk into her, it was like a breath of air after suffocation. With one hand, Vegeta lifted her hips, adjusting her, holding her where he wanted her as he began to thrust.    


The first time they’d fucked—a furtive, intense quickie against the control panel of the gravity generator—Bulma had been overwhelmed by how strong his grip was, how effortlessly he could move her, as if it were nothing. She found something inexplicably erotic in putting herself at his mercy, trusting him to know her limits and to respect them. It was the sort of foolhardy decision that could so easily become a horrible mistake and that was precisely the appeal.

Bulma arched into the motion of his hips. Vegeta leaned his head down, his nose burying into the side of her neck to breathe her in once more. He inhaled sharply and hummed. As if spurred by her scent, the hand on her hip squeezed her with bruising force and Vegeta hooked his other arm behind her knee. A bolt of pleasure hit her deep within her gut as he drove into her. A hot, tingling sensation that ran the length of her spine and straight down to the soles of her feet.

She moaned, too loudly, but too tired to stifle it. So what if the whole house heard? She was a grown woman, she could make whatever mistakes she wanted to. It felt good to be loud, unfettered. Bulma let herself fall into a pattern of staccato cries, timed to the motion of Vegeta’s hips. A moment later, a hand clamped over her mouth. She groaned against it.

“That’s it,” he growled into her ear, “Scream for me. Come on, let’s hear it!”   


She bit his hand, because she could. Because she couldn’t hurt him, no matter how hard she tried. With her teeth sunk into his palm, she screamed. She screamed, because he made her feel like a wild, feral thing. Because, with one leg slung over Vegeta’s shoulder, every thrust hit her Right There. Because the more she screamed, the more he tensed and shuddered.

Soon, his rhythm began to falter, his breath shallowed. Beyond his penchant for giving commands, Vegeta was normally silent in bed, but now, Bulma could hear short, timid moans slipping from the lips against her ear. She quivered at the sound, wanting more of it, wanting to shatter his inhibitions as much as he did hers. She bit him as hard as she could and screamed. Vegeta gave a sharp cry, driving the full length of his cock into her. Their climaxes came one after the other and they rocked together, bodies flush, until the last ripples of orgasm ebbed away.   


When Bulma returned from the bathroom, Vegeta was lying on his back, mouth slightly agape, his whole body gleaming with sweat. As she approached, he looked at her with a heavy-lidded, languid gaze and her suspicions were confirmed: She had well and truly rocked his world.   


“So,” Bulma said, settling in beside him, “the screaming thing?”

“Mm.”   


“That really worked for you, huh?”   


“You were impressive.”   


“Do you think anyone heard me?”

He grinned a little too wickedly. “I hope so.”

Bulma was decidedly not going to picture her parents’ reaction to hearing their daughter’s stifled screams in the night.   


“Glad to know that in the event of my grisly murder, my parents won’t even come check on me...”   


“How do you know I didn’t kill them first?”   


Bulma laughed at that. Prince Vegeta, scourge of a hundred planets, joked about killing her parents, and she laughed. There was definitely something wrong with her.   


Why couldn’t they always be like this, she wondered. Not that she minded their daily arguments—every god from Kami to King Kai knew she _lived _for a good argument—but, she missed the closeness and the candor that they had at night. If only they had more chances to be alone together.   


“Hey,” Bulma said, propping herself on one elbow to look at him. “What’re you doing day after tomorrow?”

He blinked at her and raised an eyebrow.

“Right, dumb question. Same thing you do everyday. Do you want to go somewhere instead?”

“As in somewhere off this filthy rock?”   


“As in somewhere on this filthy rock, but outside the square-footage of Capsule Corp headquarters. Like… to the beach, or… climb a mountain or something.”   


Vegeta frowned.   


“With me,” she clarified.   


The frown intensified. “Why?”   


“For fun.”   


“I don’t have time for fun.”

“Well, what do you call this, then?”   


“What?”   


“_This_. This whole... you and me situation. What would you call this?”   


The gravity of what she’d just asked weighted the room faster than any machine Bulma could ever build. What would he call this?

She could have backpedaled, played it off as the slip of the tongue that it was, but as soon as she said it, Bulma realized how badly she wanted an answer. She liked this, liked _him_. Lately, if she wasn’t careful, she’d find herself thinking about him all day. Nothing profound, just remembering little things like the way he looked in his sleep or something dumb he’d said. She knew she was rapidly approaching smitten and if she had any hope of escaping alive, she needed to know where she stood.   


So she let the question sit, as is, and waited out the silence, watching Vegeta’s jaw clench and unclench. He didn’t look at her, but stared at the ceiling with such intensity Bulma thought he’d burn a hole through it. If there was a Dumbass Olympics, asking her emotionally-stunted alien fuck buddy to define their relationship had to be a medal-winning performance.    


“This,” he proclaimed, at last, “is the opposite of fun for me.”   


“Oh.”   


_Oh_.   


What was it he had said earlier? _Don’t ask a question, unless you’re prepared for the answer._ She’d asked; he’d answered. This wasn’t fun for him. Meaning it was—what? Tedious? A means to an end? Whatever he’d meant exactly, his tone held none of the same fondness and warmth Bulma felt for him. Her eyes grew hot and her cheeks ached with tears she refused to let manifest. Funny, she really had thought that when he crushed her heart, it was going to be physically. 

Bulma laid back against the pillows and sighed. The clock on her nightstand told her, in angry, glowing red, that it was a quarter past three. She could still manage four hours of sleep, if she was lucky. She rolled onto her side, putting her back to Vegeta, who was as motionless as stone.

She kept expecting him to leave, wanted him to. He always reminded her she had no perceptible _ki_, nevertheless, Bulma tried her best to radiate ‘get the fuck out’ energy at him with all her meager might. Finally, the mattress creaked and she felt a wave of relief.

However, instead of the sounds of his departure, Bulma heard him let out a shaky breath just behind her. Slowly, Vegeta rested his head against her back and curled his body around hers, his grip tight, as if she might slip away otherwise. That was when it hit her: the opposite of ‘fun’ to him was not ‘boring’ or ‘terrible’. The opposite of fun was _serious_. He didn’t have time for fun, but he had time for _her_.

_Oh_.

Bulma took his arm and wrapped it around herself more snugly. She tangled her legs with his. Her heart felt as though it had jumped into her throat.

“Me too,” she whispered.

Vegeta gave a slow exhale, his embrace softening. Had he been nervous for her answer, too? Bulma smiled at the thought, closing her eyes and letting exhaustion wash over her. Never mind the idiocy of asking, Bulma decided that getting the answer she’d wanted and being too dense to understand it would have taken home the gold. Tonight, she was happy with silver.


End file.
